Shirley

The second-and only historical-book from the author of Jane Eyre: "Revolutionary . . . Brontë's most feminist novel." (Lyndall Gordon, author of Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life).

After the success of Jane Eyre earned Charlotte Brontë lifelong notoriety as a moral rebel, she vowed to write a sweeping social chronicle that focused on "something real and unromantic as Monday morning."

Set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-1812, Shirley is the story of two women: the shy Caroline Helstone, who is trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory and whose bare life symbolizes the plight of single women in the nineteenth century; and the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention. Their friendship, contrasting circumstances, and views of traditional gender roles make this novel "as interesting and relevant today as when Brontë wrote it" (Curled Up with a Good Book).

"Charlotte Bronte sure knew how to write a sizzling romance. . . . Overall, there's plenty of great passion, Charlotte Bronte's descriptions are lyrical and second to none." -The Vince Review

"Shirley, which differs considerably from Jane Eyre, declares its affinity with Benjamin Disraeli's Sibyl and Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton and North and South. The novel contains an explicit social discourse about the Condition of England aimed at highlighting the class and gender divide and its possible social consequences." -The Victorian Web